The game of tennis is known to be a source of exercise and enjoyment for people around the world. Tennis is also an elegant and exciting sport for spectators. Tennis is particularly popular in Australia, in the United States, and in countries in Europe. A television network known as The Tennis Channel™ has recently been offered, further increasing the popularity of the sport.
Tennis can be a difficult sport to learn. In this respect, a mastery of tennis requires that the player learn many different strokes. Such strokes include forehand topspin groundstrokes, backhand topspin groundstrokes, backhand slices, flat serves, kick serves, approach shots, vollies, half vollies, and other strokes. These strokes are made more difficult to learn due to the length, weight and configuration of the tennis racket, and also due to the need to hit a ball traveling at many different angles, speeds and spins.
A person wishing to learn tennis strokes prior to engaging another player on a court has limited options. They may practice their strokes alone on a wall or “backboard.” Alternatively, they may stand on one end of a tennis court and hit multiple balls across the net without a live partner. This generally requires a “basket” of balls. Alternatively still, they may take a lesson from a tennis teaching professional who manually feeds from a basket of balls. Further still, they may use a “ball machine,” which again requires multiple balls and a process for set-up.
All of such approaches are good and acceptable. However, many students lack basic hand-eye coordination skills, making the process of hitting balls on a tennis court, even balls that are fed in a controlled manner, frustrating. Therefore, a need exists for a tennis teaching apparatus which may be used by a beginning student to learn basic hand-eye coordination skills. Further, a need exists for a tennis training system which may be used without need of a basket of balls. Further still, a need exists for a training system that is fun, easy to use, and can be adapted to repetitively hit slow-bouncing tennis balls such as a foam ball or a low compression ball.